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September 02, 2009

Technology FAIL

All
around me these days, technology seems to be failing. Last week, our
email/internet/phone system at work broke and was virtually unusable for three
days. The same strange universal force responsible for that snafu also
caused my boss's motherboard to short circuit, which made her
micromanaging and robotic inability to communicate with most humans
that much more intense. Several days later, my cell phone decided to
only work when plugged in, which of course inspired a hi-larious trip
to the Verizon store for a replacement wherein I was mocked by a store
worker and sent home empty handed. Then, on Monday, my beloved remote
control died. Oh, and yesterday, as many of you know,Gmail experienced some sort of hysterical breakdown.

All of this is inspiring me to throw my hands in the air and shout imploringly "why me?"

Times
like this I question the efficacy of the so-called digital revolution.
Sure, it's very nice that practically everyone in developed nations
owns the21st century equivalent of a walkie-talkie and that I can be reached by my friends for a beer at the drop of a hat. But how necessary
is that? Of course, I know this opinion to be unpopular. Take Saturday
for instance. I have been spending some time with a new gentleman
friend and I was explaining the cell phone situation to him.

"Okay,
so the phone isn't working so well," I said. "So, uh, if you need to
get in touch with me between these hours..well...you can't. So don't
change plans at the last minute."

"But what if you're out and somebody wants to get in touch with you?"

"They won't. They'll just have to do it the way everyone did it 10 years ago. You know, in advance."

Novel, I know.

Really, the cell phone thing doesn't bother me that much.

But
the remote? Yeah, that's another story. The writing had been scrawled
on the wall many days in advance of its actual passing, I just thought
the batteries might need replacing. I spent a good amount of time on
Monday after tennis trying to revive it's cold, lifeless plastic body.
A battery switch did not reap the results I had been seeking. Then I
thought that perhaps the problem was due to poor channel surfing form
so I spent some time pointing the remote at the TV with greater purpose
and authority. Nada. I finally calledR CN and their solution to the problem was to have me press a bunch of buttons on the remote at once. Nothing. They finally conceded that it was indeed broken and that I should bring it in to the closest RCN store for a free replacement.

Awesome.

But
yesterday, instead of performing said errand at lunch as I intended, I
instead got sucked into joining my friends at work outside for a fun,
social group lunch--an activity loads more enjoyable than
errand-running.

This
meant that later that night as I passed a few hours with friends over
happy hour beers, my purse contained, in addition to the usual cell
phone, wallet, random scraps of paper, tubes oflip gloss, keys and granola bar, a cell phone charger and a remote control.

Awesome. Because nothing says "sane" like a purse full of dead electronic gadgets.

And of course, I was subjected to a second night of no remote control, which seriously cramped my DVR watching. Can somebody please explain why DVRs
have to be made so that not having a functioning remote turns
TV-watching into the most arduous activity outside of scrubbing a
kitchen floor with a toothbrush?

So
today, invigorated by the positively crisp 80 degree weather, I made my
way down to Metro Center to procure a new remote. Have you ever been to
theRCN store on F Street? If so, you know that security there must be a
pressing concern, as evidenced by the fact that their customer service
reps sit inside large plexiglass boxes. It is seriously hardcore. Like, liquor store in Petworth
hardcore. Do they fear violent exchanges with their customer base so
much that they must resort to such drastic measures? Is there service
*that* bad? Lucky for me, the remote control exchange took less than 5
minutes, most of which was spent enduring a minor level of emotional
abuse from the lady in the plexiglass box after I asked for my batteries
back and she scolded me for not thinking of that sooner. Good point.
"Well," I countered, "I expected you to maybe try fixing the thing
before you threw it into the 'broken remote control box'." While taking
a snotty tone with abadass customer service lady with a very short temper trapped inside a plexiglass
box is never advisable, she did seem to see my point and dropped the
argument. Then she handed me my new remote and thus, my purse became
home to an actual functioning piece of technology. Or so I hope.

So
the problem with the digital revolution is that we become so reliant on
it that when its trappings fail us, it's much harder for us to
function, simply because we have to spend that time adjusting to the
absence of that technology. It's like it creates a little glitch in
the circuits of our own minds, which disrupts communication flows and
makes everything pause for a second while we readjust course and pick
up a book instead of watching Mad Men. Which is fine, but it's not
insignificant.

There are times when I long for a more analog way of being. Like when I learned about the Impossible Project, I squeed
with happiness. And when my friend M quipped that we need an analog
counterpart to the internet. While I know that he wasn't serious, it
got me wondering what that would look like. As I see it, it would sort
of be a giant bulletin board where people would post things and those
things might have strings linking to other things. Impossible yes, but
fun and fanciful to imagine.